feature stories

last update: january 4th, 2011

january 4th, 2011

The launch of the Satellite Sentinel Project captured the attention of national and international news media last week, and has been prominently featured in dozens of countries. Anticipation is running high about what will be revealed by the first satellite images to be released later this week along with expert analysis from UNOSAT and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. Less well publicized have been our plans to roll out significant additional resources -- such as crowd-sourced reports from eye witnesses on the ground, and a series of video dispatches from Tim Freccia which bring in local voices, adding necessary and revealing human context to the tantalizing, high-tech photography.

Follow the link for a round-up of initial Satellite Sentinel Project coverage, and visit www.satsentinel.org for a full overview of the project, as well as daily updates.

december 30th, 2010

George Clooney and John Prendergast slumped down at a wooden table in a dusty school compound in southern Sudan. It was Oct. 4, and the two men were in the hometown of Valentino Achak Deng, whose experiences wandering the desert as a refugee during Sudan's last civil war were the basis for the best-selling book What Is the What.

Clooney, the actor, and Prendergast, a human-rights activist with 25 years of experience in Africa, had heard enough on their seven-day visit to know that a new round of atrocities could follow the January referendum on independence. If it did, the likelihood was that no one would be held accountable. Why not, Clooney asked, "work out some sort of a deal to spin a satellite" above southern Sudan and let the world watch to see what happens?